atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems Chaining 66 blocks with AMP connectors

I mostly asked because I have a pile of old rotary keysets in beautiful condition, and with VoIP and everything else changing the rules about how phone lines are supposed to work, they are getting harder and harder to use. Sure, I could put them behind my Partner system since that has a pulse to tone converter built in, but where's the fun in that? I have managed to discover that the Grandstream HT series ATA's will support rotary dialing. They are fricken finicky though. They really want 10 PPS(IPS) do or die. Some of my rotary phones work with them, some don't. Someday when I have patience I'll make a jig to connect my phones to my O-scope to measure them and adjust them... To be completely fair, probably 90% of my wired phone usage is the Partner 18D sitting on my desk. My main contacts and a pizza joint are all programmed to the buttons, along with the contact closure that I wired to the garage door openers. People come to the house and text "HERE" (which I friggen hate) and I just smash the button to open the door and let them in.

Some may call it lazy....

I call it efficient.

Chris, thanks for the rotary info.

I found it's not that important to know the exact specs for the rotary, as it turns out it's kinda easy for the cpu to tally counts from the rotary no matter how far off the timing is; as long as it's in a very broad ballpark. So I came up with some firmware code such that even hand clicking gives entirely reliable results. And I've been using a noise reduction algorithm with debounce and hysteresis that takes care of switching noise really well.

So with that R&D out of the way, I need to just finish up the "board bridging" feature, which lets one join two boards together so that 4 CO lines / 8 Extensions can be supported easily. Just adding a 40 pin ribbon cable to bridge the two boards, and changing some jumpers (still working on that last part) to get the line assignments to all line up across the two boards. This way all 5 lines on all 8 extensions can be active; lines 1-4 for CO, and line 5 for intercom. Lots of blinky lights!

So all that would be in "REV F".

Oh, and here's a pic of that nice 565 HKM rotary phone I acquired for testing. Great condition, and a nice smooth dial. The cord makes my whole office smell like hairspray though.. hoping that fully outgases over time, lol.



It's quite a beauty; it's been kept in perfect shape all these years. Many thanks to the ebay seller for such a nice phone.

That's really nice!

Greg: I wonder if sticking your 565 HKM in a sealed bag with some of the deodor rock type product for a few weeks would pull the smell out?

oooh moss green

We just call you "Mr. 51"

Arthur, did you finally find the sticky note again with your password on it?

Prepping for a demo video.. two ksu boards interlinked with a ribbon cable, total of 4 lines + ICM / 8 extensions all lit up!

That's a lot of workin' 1A2 phones..!

Wow! I'd give you a 'like' if I could. Nice work.

sweeet